The Battle that Looked Like a Blessing

The Battle that Looked Like a Blessing

In July of 2015, I met a man that was an amazing person. He was kind, funny, eccentric; he was much like me. We understood each other, which led to us falling in love quickly and passionately. At the time, I was very devoted to my Christian faith, and he looked like the type of man God wanted me to be with.

The next year was an amazing one. My family loved him, so he was always around. He helped my mom with projects around the house, because he loved getting his hands dirty. He loved being outside, so that gave my family the push we needed to go enjoy nature. We were taking trips every weekend to go hiking, fishing, geocaching, and so many other adventures. Him and I were a team.

Then, something happened. In July of 2016, a switch flipped inside of him, and he became a completely different person. It started with him convincing me to stay home with him and cancelling plans I had made with my friends. He convinced me to spend almost all of my paycheck on dates and dinners for him and I. When I would go to work, he would come in (coincidentally) and sit in the back of the restaurant for the entirety of my shift, and when I would get home, he’d be there, berating me for the things I said to my coworkers, the way I looked at one of my male coworkers. When he found out I was bisexual, he would get mad at me any time I would go out with one of my girl friends, convinced I was having sex with her. Just as I was about to give up and leave him, he proposed. He became so sweet and loving, so of course I said yes. I was sure he had changed back into the man I had fallen in love with. I wanted to marry him, I was determined to make this work.

It didn’t get better. We had started having sex before he proposed, and we were both each other’s first. Which meant he was a little inexperienced, but he was unwilling to try the things I wanted to that would satisfy me. So, of course, I took things into my own hands (no pun intended). When he found out about that, he started withholding sex from me. He was driving a wedge between me and my mother, whispering these lies about how she hated him and wanted to tear us apart. At the time though, they weren’t lies to me. This was the love of my life, why would he lie to me?

After an incident during church, I had finally had enough, and left him. For weeks after, he called, texted, came to my house, came to my school, all in hopes of changing my mind. It was not easy to tell him no. He was the man I wanted to marry.

That was not the only battle I had to overcome. Because of his emotionally abusive behavior, I ended up losing all of my friends, and severely damaging my relationship with my mom. For months after our break up, I had to work endlessly to mend those relationships. It has been seven months since I set myself free. I have since completely mended my relationship with my mom, and it has become exponentially stronger. I have also gotten in touch with my best friend, and we have made amends. Everything else has just been falling into place.